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DECLARATION OF 

INDEPENDENCE OF THE 

CZECHOSLOVAK 

NATION 



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DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK NATION BY iTS 

PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT 



At this grave moment, when the Hohenzollerns are 
offering peace in order to stop the victorious advance of 
the AlUed armies and to prevent the dismemberment of 
Austria-Hungary and Turkey,and when the Hapsburgsare 
promising the federalization of the empire and autonomy to 
the dissatisfied nationaUties committed to their rule, we, the 
Czechoslovak National Council, recognized by the Allied 
and American Governments as the Provisional Government 
of the Czechoslovak State and Nation, in complete accord 
with the Declaration of the Czech Deputies made in Prague 
on January 6, 191 8, and realizing that federalization, and, 
still more, autonomy mean nothing under a Hapsburg dy- 
nasty, do hereby make and declare this our Declaration of 
Independence. 

We do this because of our belief that no people should 
be forced to live under a sovereignty which they do not re- 
cognize, and because of our knowledge and firm conviction 
that our nation cannot freely develop in a Hapsburg mock- 
federation, which is only a new form of the denationalizing 
oppression under which we have suffered for the past three 
hundred years. We consider freedom to be the first pre- 

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DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

requisite for federalization, and believe that the free nations 
of Central and Eastern Europe may easily federate should 
they find it necessary. 

We make this declaration on the basis of our historic and 
natural right. We have been an independent State since the 
seventh Century; and, in 1 5 26, as an independent State, con- 
sisting of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, we joined with 
Austria and Hungary in a defensive union against the Turk- 
ish danger. We have never voluntarily surrendered our rights 
as an independent State in this confederation. The Hapsburgs 
broke their compact with our nation by illegally transgres- 
sing our rights and violating the Constitution of our State, 
which they had pledged themselves to uphold, and we there- 
fore refuse longer to remain a part of Austria-Hungary in any 
form. 

We claim the right of Bohemia to be reunited with her 
Slovak brethren of Slovakia, once part of our national State, 
later torn from our national body, and fifty years ago incor- 
porated in the Hungarian State of the Magyars, who, by their 
unspeakable violence and ruthless oppression of their subject 
races have lost all moral and human right to rule anybody 
but themselves. 

The world knows the history of our struggle against the 
Hapsburg oppression, intensified and systematized by the 
Austro-Hungarian Dualistic Compromise of 1867. This 
dualism is only a shameless organization of brute force and 
exploitation of the majority by the minority; it is a political 
conspiracy of the Germans and Magyars against our own as 

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OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK NATION 

well as the other Slav and the Latin nations of the Monarchy. 
The world knows the history of our claims, which the 
Hapsburgs themselves dared not deny. Francis Joseph, in 
the most solemn manner repeatedly recognized the sover- 
eign rights of our nation. The Germans and Magyars op- 
posed this recognition; and Austria-Hungary, bowing before 
the Pan -Germans, became a colony of Germany, and as 
her vanguard to the East, provoked the last Balkan con- 
flict, as well as the present world war, which was begun 
by the Hapsburgs alone without the consent of the repre- 
sentatives of the people. 

We cannot and will not continue to live under the rule, 
direct or indirect, of the violators of Belgium, France, and 
Serbia, the would-be murderers of Russia and Rumania, the 
murderers of tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers of 
our blood, and the accomplices in numberless unspeakable 
crimes committed in this war against humanity by the two 
degenerate and irresponsible dynasties. We will not remain 
a part of a State which has no justification for existence, and 
which, refusing to accept the fundamental principles of mod- 
ern world-organization, remains only an artificial and im- 
moral political structure, hindering every movement toward 
democratic and social progress. The Hapsburg dynasty, 
weighed down by a huge inheritance of error and crime, is 
a perpetual menace to the peace of the world, and we deem 
it our duty toward humanity and civilization to aid in bring- 
ing about its downfall and destruction. 

We reject the sacrilegious assertion that the power of the 

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DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

Hapsburg and Hohenzollern dynasties is of divine origin; 
we refuse to recognize the divine right of kings. Our na- 
tion elected the Hapsburgs to the throne of Bohemia of its 
own free will, and by the same right deposes them. We 
hereby declare the Hapsburg dynasty unworthy of leading 
our nation, and deny all of their claims to rule in the 
Czechoslovak Land, which we here and now declare shall 
henceforth be a free and independent people and nation. 

We accept and shall adhere to the ideals of modern de- 
mocracy, as they have been the ideals of our nation for cen- 
turies. We accept the American principles as laid down by 
President Wilson: the principles of liberated mankind, of 
the actual equality of nations, and of governments deriving 
all their just power from the consent of the governed. We, 
the nation of Comenius, cannot but accept these principles 
expressed in the American Declaration of Independence, the 
principles of Lincoln, and of the Declaration of the Rights 
of Man and of the Citizen. For these principles our nation 
shed its blood in the memorable Hussite Wars five hundred 
years ago, for these same principles, beside her Allies in Russia, 
Italy and France, our nation-is shedding its blood today. 

We shall outline only the main principles of the Constitu- 
tion of the Czechoslovak Nation. The final decision as to the 
Constitution itself falls to the legally chosen representatives 
of the liberated and united people. 

The Czechoslovak State shall be a Republic. In constant 
endeavor for progress it will guarantee complete freedom of 
conscience, religion and science, literature and art, speech, 

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OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK NATION 

the press, and the right of assembly and petition. The Church 
shall be separated from the State. 

Our democracy shall rest on universal suffrage. Women 
shall be placed on equal footing with men, politically, soci- 
ally, and culturally. The rights of the minority shall be safe- 
guarded by proportional representation; national minorities 
shall enjoy equal rights. The government shall be parliamen- 
tary in form and shall recognize the principles of the initia- 
tive and referendum. The standing army will be replaced 
by militia. 

The Czechoslovak Nation will carry out far-reaching so- 
cial and economic reforms; the large estates will be redeemed 
for home colonization; patents of nobility will be abolished. 

Our nation will assume its part of the Austro-Hungarian 
pre-war public debt; the debts for this war we leave to those 
who incurred them. 

In its foreign policy the Czechoslovak Nation will ac- 
cept its full share of responsibility in the reorganization of 
Eastern Europe. It accepts fully the democratic and social 
principle of nationalism and subscribes to the doctrine that 
all covenants and treaties shall be entered into openly and 
frankly without secret diplomacy. 

Our Constitution shall provide an efficient, rational, and 
just government, which will exclude all special privileges 
and prohibit class legislation. 

Democracy has defeated theocratic autocracy. Militar- 
ism is overcome — democracy is victorious; on the basis of 
democracy, mankind will be reorganized. The forces of 

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DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 
darkness have served the victory of light— the longed-for 
age of humanity is dawning. 

We believe in democracy, we believe in 
liberty— and liberty evermore 



Given in Paris, on the eighteenth day of October, 191 8. 

Professor Thomas G. Masaryk 
Prime Minister and Minister of Finance 

General Dr. Milan R. Stefanik 
Minister of National Defense 

Dr. Edward Benes 

Minister of Foreign Affairs and of Interior 



T*rinted for the Czechoslovak Arts Club of 
New York City by The Marchbanks Press in 
October^ 191 8 



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